Veronica sent in some picture that she speculated were green shield bugs. She’s right, but they are the juvenile “nymphs” which lack wings, hence the slightly different rear ends to the adults that most people would recognise.

Who needs a guard dog, or guard goose, when you can have a guard spider? I have two good examples above my front door: a large false widow, and a house spider living just a couple of inches from it.

The false widow (Steatoda nobilis) got a lot of bad press over the last couple of years, as a relative of the infamous Black widow, and being an ‘immigrant’ the papers love to demonise them. An immigrant from over 100 years ago mind you. Still, if that keeps tabloid-rading miscreants from my door, then all the better! Still, I doubt those miscreants are well informed in spider identification.

It does surprise me that two large spiders can live so very close to one another without any aggro. Their webs literally intermingle, and I’ve seen them sitting within an inch of each other.

This bee paused for a breather on my brick path, and was good enough to stick around for a few photos. I assume it’s a mining bee of some sort, though I’m not going to try to identify exactly which one. This is about the extent of what a plain iPhone 6 can manage for close-up work.

Time to emerge from winter hibernation, somewhat belatedly, as it’s already been a warm, dry spring in the UK, hitting 25c at one point and doing a passable impression of summer.

This is the most exciting time of the year for nature lovers, at least in my opinion, as new life bursts all around. Also, I find myself spending a lot of time in the garden, and so I’m well placed to notice what’s going on outside.

A wasp started building a nest on the ceiling of my shed, which was fascinating to watch, but realistically couldn’t be allowed to continue as I use the shed a lot. You can see it pictured above, with the beginnings of the central set of hexagonal cells handing from the centre of the outer shell.

Plenty of butterflies are about, with the bright yellow/green Brimstones being particularly noticeable.

Ants never seem to let up. How can there be about 3 nests (all different colours and sizes) per square metre in my garden! Do they all survive the winter or have they grown up from nothing in just a very short time? A little reading suggests they just go deeper underground below the frost line.

Jays and Magpies are everywhere and very noticeable. Just that time of year.

Thanks to Peter Hunt for sending in these marvellous images of a beetle I didn’t know about before now. In his own words:

“It may be of interest to your readers to see The Cliff Tiger Beetle, Cylindera germanica, that is found along the south west coast of the Isle of Wight, on our crumbling cliffs.

In July I came across this beetle as it scurries around after prey. It has a formidable pair of jaws and tends to pursue its quarry on foot rather than taking flight. A magnificent beast and a rare one in the UK too.”

It’s perhaps no surprise I’ve not heard of it, as apparently it has only been found in Dorset and on the Isle of Wight since 1970. Peter has blogged about it on his own excellent site, with more local wonders.

Peter Hunt sent in this cracking shot of an Elephant hawk moth larva. Apparently marooned a couple of inches above the waterline on a pond plant, he moved it to a Fuschia. Caterpillars generally only eat a few specific plants and that’s on the list, so Peter probably gave it a good chance.

I saw this very large Garden spider (Araneus diadematus) crawling slowly up my porch – and latterly on the hessian bag where I tempted it for a better photograph in the light. It was a very large example and strikingly coloured a deep red with dark brown legs and ruby red abdomen. I’ve never seen a red variation before and marvelled at it for some time. I had to check online to reassure myself it really was just a standard Garden spider and I hadn’t discovered a new species. What a magnificent brute!

It’s been a little while, so time for an update! Summer lingered late into September, and I even found myself eating lunch al fresco in October last weekend. Autumn has finally landed however, with plenty of wet and wild weather to knock the leaves off the trees.

Garden spiders are everywhere, stringing their massive webs across paths, waiting to trap unsuspecting arachnophobes. The one pictured above was on the front my recycling bin and was about the largest I’ve ever seen. Absolutely massive!

One evening I watched a smaller male Garden spider tentatively approaching a female in order to mate. She wasn’t keen and batted him away a few times before he managed to get in there. I might post the video sometime soon.

I’ve run into a few foxes recently, in my own garden and whilst out running. I’m always a little nervous when only a couple of yards from a fox – you don’t know what they might do, especially if they’re desperately hungry, ill (usually mange) or feel threatened. Usually it’s “skulk away”.

Such a long hot dry period, and yet when the rains come, the slugs and snails are there right away in incredible numbers. I could imagine people of days gone by imagining that they actually come down in the rain itself overnight.

Veronica sends in this absolutely brilliant close up of what she reckons to be a Tree bumble bee. I’ve no reason to doubt her identification, and some of the other pictures show the white tail. It’s only been in the UK for about 10 years but has spread very rapidly, apparently due to its tendency to nest in our abundant bird boxes.